My Brother Sam Is Dead
by SisterGrimmErin
Summary: When the gods throw dice, mortals weep.


A/N: Co-written with the lovely Ellen 26, who always downplays her amazing ideas.

**Sam Hamilton  
Son of Apollo  
True Artist**

**"**_**My trade shall be to say what I think.**_**"**

**June 19th, 1965-****June 19th, 1984**

"_Styx and stones will break my bones, but thunder and lightning don't scare me any day_!" chuckled Sam Hamilton at the sky. He'd angered Zeus, and the big old bastard couldn't do anything about it because he was in Canada. "O Canada!" mumbled the golden boy. "O Canada!" he sang, and bent under the tree to kiss a maple leaf. "You guys rock," he shouted, swinging his beer bottle to encompass the entire country. "Loopholes... own... Mark said this would never work, didn't he? That gods would _never_ pay attention to national borders... Screw you, brother! Screw you back to Camp Half-Blood!"

Rain started to pour down around the young boy, his barely nineteen-year-old face lit up by threatening lighting from miles away. "Must be a coincidence, Coincidence. Nobody would be mean enough to kill me on my 19th birthday. I've got girls to screw, Zeus should understand that..." He shrugged it off. Sam started to count the accompanying thunder, waiting for the ominous crackle. _1... 2... 3... 4... 5... Crack._

"Aw, come on. I was hoping this would be the one time Mark was wrong... Mark's _always_ right, can't he be wrong for _once?!_" He whined. "I bet all the being-right genes got wasted on him. He's a prude. I swear, he's still a virgin, there's no way he ever slept with Katie..." Sam stared into space with remembered appreciation. "Katie was _fit."_

_1... 2... 3... 4... Crack._

The half-blood went to his car, an Oldsmobile from 1950, the pride and joy of his life, to find it utterly wrecked by a lightning bolt.

"Oh, fuck you, Zeus. No one messes with _my_ car!" he screamed, and got out his guitar to play the lyrics at the sky again. "_Styx and stones will break my bones, but thunder and lightning don't scare me any day_! _STYX AND STONES WILL BREAK MY BONES, BUT THUNDER AND LIGHTING DON'T SCARE ME ANY DAY!!!_"

_1...2...3... Crack._

Sam shivered against the wind, his thin white T-shirt clung to his skin with the rain water.

He opened the hood of his beloved car, looked around. _So maybe coming into the middle of a field to get fantastically drunk and screw girls who aren't showing up wasn't the best idea._ He could hear the voice of his brother Mark in his head: _So, you screwed up again, Sam? Just hope I'm always here to get you out of it._

Unfortunately, for once, Mark wasn't here. The serious member of the Apollo cabin and his full twin brother had abandoned him to get drunk by himself . The boy gulped. "Sorry, brother," he mumbled. Well, if he was going to die...

_1... 2... Crack._

He was going to do it by pissing off the Lord of the Sky even further. "You, Zeus, are a pervert. You raped your sister, married her, raped your daughter whom you allowed to get kidnapped by your brother... you're a wanker who can't keep his dick in his pants!"

_1... Crack._

"And you impregnate people through golden showers... if you ask me, I'd like to have a damn orgasm if I'm going to be popping something out nine months later. Your kids are all as screwed up as you are! Dad, I've never liked you. _Never_. Screw you, I'm not going to die begging for your mercy. You still love Artemis, don't you, and you're still screwing anything this side of the Earth to make up for it. And Zeus, I mean, you turned yourself into a _bird_ for Christ's sake, just so you could marry someone, who fucking _hated_ you! Look how well that turned out! I'm so sorry, Hera, seriously. You're stuck with that jerk just because you like animals... well, except for him..."

_Crack._ Sam could see the lightning now, looming ominously across the field. So close to where he was standing.

"Fuck you!" he shouted at the heavens as the sky lit up once more. _Crack. _They were almost simultaneous now, only a split second apart. Sam returned to blasphemy for the last seconds of his life. "Dad, Mom says you suck in bed, For-Your-Information. Zeus? I'm sure Hera's thinking the same thing, it might be time to invest in some pleasure enhancing gel, it works wonders."

Then the lightning struck him where he stood, nearly simultaneous with the thunder, and the teenager's body fell to the ground.

**X X X**

Mark breathed a tired sigh, running a hand through thick, blond hair. He no longer needed to follow the GPS signal attached to Sam's car, Mark could see the smoke a mile away. He turned up the radio, and popped open the glove box, reaching in to try and find a tissue. His hand pushed aside a set of handcuffs, before his hand tightened around the soft paper.

Mark blew his nose before pushing the tissue back into the compartment. Sam needed to learn to walk on his own, he couldn't always be there to save him.

The looming storm cloud was blowing over his head now, he was almost there. The passenger seat in his car had been freshly stocked with aspirin, fresh underwear, fruit and vegetables, and five or six bottles of water.

He pulled up his car into a parking spot next to the gate of the open field. The field was normally full of chest high strands of wheat, along with a tree in the dead center, now had a burning wreck smoking up the place. Mark made his way through the left over wheat, expecting Sam to come bounding over to him at an any moment, eyes full of a hangover, with a tired smile on his face.

What Mark did not expect was his twin Sam's charred body to be lying next to his car, almost unrecognizable. The only way he could tell the body was his brother's and not someone else's was the beer bottle- Sam's favorite brand- and the remnants of a brilliant blue scarab beetle tattoo on his chest.

"No," he said, with conviction. "No, it can't be him.... It's just someone else with the same tattoo." He mumbled to himself, but Mark was just trying to believe it, like kids believe in Santa Claus- his brother Sam was dead. Mark fought the realization, the crushing weight of knowledge, and tried to put it up against other things. They'd argued just last night- he'd always been so alive and good- he'd loved everything and everyone around him so wholly- Mark had_ told_ him not to do something so _stupid_...

The revelation sank into his stomach with a bitter aftertaste.

_Damn you, Sam. Damn you for dying in that way, damn me for not going with you and keeping you safe, damn Zeus for doing it, damn Dad for not saving you... damn the whole thing._

Mark shook his fist angrily at the sky. "He was my brother. He was your _son,_ gods damn it! Why didn't you do anything?! Tell me!"

There was no answer.

Mark sobbed over the broken body of his twin. No... no... how could Sam have died for something so _stupid_? That fucking song! That's all it was, it was just a drunken rant at the sky! That's all it _ever_ was. It's what Sam did, he got drunk, and he made people mad. It was Sam.

"Fuck you, Zeus," he swore. "Fuck you."

And with nothing else left to do, Mark carried his brother back to the car, trying not to cry.

That was the day a few wise half-bloods learned these lessons:

1. An angry rant is never worth your life, and gods will stop at nothing in their wrath, lust or kindness.

2. Although, swearing at the Lord of the Sky, and telling him he should try using pleasure enhancing gel sometime, will ensure you a straight, first-class trip to Elysian Fields.


End file.
